Archive for the tag 'Pocket Guide to Balsam Bashing'

Way back in 2013 when I started discussing my Pocket Guide to Balsam Bashing with Merlin Unwin Books, we decided very quickly that we wanted it to make it as easy as possible to carry and use – which is why we released the first edition in a handy little ring-bound format, just like Peter […]

Especially if you’re an angler, invasive non-native species can really spoil your day. From giant hogweed on the banks (with phyto-phototoxic sap which inflicts third-degree burns that’ll keep coming back for years) to signal crayfish and killer shrimp in the water (which destroy the food web from the bottom up by chewing through all the […]

Hard to believe a year has passed since my Pocket Guide to Balsam Bashing was published, yet this is already the second summer when it’s been helping ordinary members of the public to start fighting back against invasive non-native species (INNS) in their local areas. Now balsam (and floating pennywort, rhododendron, mink, grey squirrel etc…) […]

It’s not every day you get interviewed on your home water for an international fishing ezine. So when Germany’s SCALE Magazine offered to send writer-translator Tankred Rinder (also editor of Forelle und Aesche) and photographer Veit Dresmann to south London as part of their round-the-UK road trip in September… … I jumped at the chance […]

Where has this summer gone? Between publication of my Balsam Bashing book, a few freelance copywriting gigs up in London, helping to recruit new staff for the Wandle and South East Rivers Trust and watching over the Wandle’s biggest river restoration projects yet, experimenting with a radical new approach to ultralight fly-fishing, and exploring new […]

A couple of months have passed since my Pocket Guide to Balsam Bashing was published in May this year, and it’s been great to see it gradually gaining traction across the environmental sector. Here’s what the reviewers have been saying so far: Neil Patterson in Fly Fishing & Fly Tying magazine: Stuffed with essential facts […]

According to the great John Gierach, publishers may well have invented book signings to keep writers humble… and that’s certainly how it felt for the first five spookily-quiet minutes of Coch-y-Bonddu’s ‘meet the author’ session during this year’s CLA Game Fair at Blenheim. Maybe we’re putting them off, suggested Peter Hayes, all sitting here looking like […]

To celebrate the launch of my new Pocket Guide to Balsam Bashing this week, I’ve been highly honoured to set out my stall at two separate Sportfish events… … first an all-day signing session at Farlows on publication day (complete with wine and snacks generously laid on by Brian Fratel and Sam) … … and […]

Invasive non-native species of all kinds, be very afraid. Today’s the day when my new Pocket Guide to Balsam Bashing officially gets let out to start kicking your ass in the wild. Me? I’ll mostly be spending the day at Farlows in central London, hoping to sign a few copies and chat about invasive species with anyone […]